Industry Advice Ask Mike: Are Industry Surveys Worth Taking?

with Mike Anderson, Collision Advice

This month, we “Ask Mike” to share his thoughts on the importance of collision repairers responding to surveys and providing information and perspectives on their industry. We at Hammer & Dolly hope you find the following exchange useful, and we encourage you to reach out to us if you have a question for Mike on this or any industry-related matter that he can answer in a future issue.

Hammer & Dolly: As you know, there are no greater experts on the collision repair industry than the shops themselves – and surveys are a great way to gauge where the profession is in terms of processes, profitability and accepted practices. For example, John Yoswick of CRASH Network conducts the annual “Insurer Report Card” survey, which asks collision professionals to grade the performance of the automobile insurers in their state. That survey has been very successful, generating information used by The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and other prominent mainstream media sources. What are your thoughts on that endeavor? 

Mike Anderson: The ‘Insurer Report Card’ survey is 100 percent John Yoswick’s baby. I encourage all my clients and everyone I come across as a speaker to participate in it, because it’s a great tool to utilize to educate consumers as to whether they have a good carrier. 

As you said, there have been some very credible news publications that have picked up John’s report and used it to add to their insurance-specific coverage. It’s great for customers to read it and know, ‘Hey, ABC Insurance doesn’t pay for this; I’ll need to pay $2,000 out of pocket,’ or that their carrier may have a low consumer satisfaction rating. It also helps shops educate the consumer and say, ‘Hey, I’m not trying to take advantage of you and overcharge you. You can see here from this third-party source that your carrier doesn’t do right by the policyholder.’ I really appreciate what John has done and continues to do with the survey. 

H&D: Additionally, you have worked with John in conducting the “Who Pays for What?” industry surveys for many years now. What led the two of you to develop it, and what remain some of its primary goals?

MA: Back when I owned my shops, there was a guy named Charlie Baker who had a publication called Collision Repair Industry Insight. Quarterly, Charlie would fax over a list of not-included items and ask shops how often they got insurance companies to reimburse them for those operations. Charlie would later publish the results, which I always found very helpful at my shops. Charlie’s survey made me more aware of what other people were billing and getting reimbursed for. Eventually, Collision Repair Industry Insight ceased publishing, but I never forgot those surveys. 

I never wanted to take anything from anyone else, but Collision Repair Industry Insight hadn’t been in operation for a while when I started Collision Advice. Over 10 years ago, I decided to take what Charlie did and build on it. I contacted John and asked him to help me compile the data. We began surveying not-included items, which led us to add other questions, such as the types of software shops used and how backlogged they were, to get a better pulse on the industry. It has evolved consistently since then, and we’re always looking for ways to make it more valuable for shops. There’s no charge to take our survey and download the results. 

We take the respondents’ confidentiality very seriously, which is why I’ve always funded the survey myself without sponsorships. Each survey takes about 15 to 20 minutes to complete. 

We do the surveys every January, April, July and October, and each survey is driven by a specific topic. For example, one will be on body operations, and another will focus on mechanical operations. Shops telling us they use the results as part of the training they provide their teams is one of the best pieces of feedback we’ve received. The survey has also helped some shops in their negotiations with insurers that say they don’t pay for certain operations. 

The ‘Who Pays for What?’ survey process has helped many shops realize they’re not alone, nor are they the only ones seeking reimbursement for certain procedures. Additionally, we separate the survey results by DRP shops or non-DRP shops. We also share the results by US region. 

In the results, we show how many people said they were being reimbursed by insurance companies for certain operations all of the time, most of the time, some of the time or never at all…and whether shops are even asking for these things. One of the biggest reasons we see for why people are not getting reimbursed is that they never asked to be paid for that operation or weren’t aware that it was a not-included item. 

H&D: How has the number of survey respondents changed over the years?

MA: Prior to COVID, around 1,600 shops took the survey. Since the pandemic, we’ve seen that number drop to 600 to 800. We really wish we could get more participation to help the industry become more educated. 

We’ve always said that if we get more than 100 responses from a given state, we will publish all the specific results just for that state. That’s only happened once so far, with Texas. Again, there’s no charge to participate in the survey, and we encourage more shops to take it. 

I recognize that a lot of shops say, ‘The insurance company doesn’t pay the bill; the customer does.’ I would ask people not to get caught up in the nuances of that verbiage. Yes, the customer is the person paying the bill, but this survey is about seeing how often shops can get an insurance company to put a particular operation on an estimate without having to charge that customer out of pocket. That information is essential. 

For more information on the “Insurer Report Card” survey, please visit crashnetwork.com. More information on the “Who Pays for What?” survey is available at crashnetwork.com/collisionadvice.

Want more? Check out the January 2026 issue of Hammer & Dolly!